[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Zalson]

I did some planning up to T40. If we move to mine the copper after farming the corn, we get worker 3 done 1 turn earlier than my previous plan (on T39 as opposed to T40). That allows us to be working all improved tiles (corn, pigs, copper mine, crabs, farmed sugar) on T40. We then have some flexibility: we can pop out 2 warriors while growing the capital to size 4 -- or we can pop out a barracks and a warrior or even get started on settler 3.

The second city basically slowbuilds the barracks in this plan which is maybe not the best use of resources. It gets a chop but it might be worth an early whip to ensure we can pop borders and get the other crab hooked up quickly. Haven't considered that yet.

The second city is struggling a lot so I'm not sure that's the right choice.

[Charriu]

I don't want the second city to struggle that hard. With a chop and a whip, we can get the city up to speed with a barracks and a granary. I think that's the best move for this city.

About tech:

The Wheel will be finished on T34. This is what my current tech plan:

Fishing->The Wheel->Pottery->Archery->???

Wheel and Pottery are a must as we can need the trade income and the granary is one of our bonuses and should be used quickly. Archery is very cheap and will be done in 3 or 4 turns. After that I'm looking at those techs:

• Animal Husbandry: So that we know where the horses are
  
• Masonary: To connect the marble
  
• Religion techs and make an attempt at one of the early religions, if still available
  

I also have a question. Earlier you wrote:

If the only food at the marble is a forest hills spice: that is cruel. Because right now I'm thinking we'll end up planting on the marble.

Sailing also moves up in the priority list. We want a galley and a settler out ASAP to plant that crabs resource. 2c trade routes for the win!

What did you mean with "2c trade routes"?

[Zalson]

I'll try to do the math on whipping that second city. We definitely need to get it up to speed and quickly. It is just so expensive: needs a barracks AND a granary AND a workboat. Fortunately, that's only 90 base hammers and we can chop out 60 of them (which i think confirms that we need a whip).

We want sailing because a city on a separate landmass gets and intercontinental bonus to trade routes. The city that is working that crabs resource to the south will get us +2 commerce trade routes from inception, as opposed to +1 commerce internal trade routes. However, we need a galley to found it.

That was what I meant. If there are more city spots on the mainland, I think we keep expanding there. But we probably want a galley out around T60 to 70 to get that city founded.

However, i don't know if we want sailing so early. I do think we want archers just because they're a good defensive unit in advance of iron working.

I had us going animal husbandry just because we'll want the ivory for early happiness. Otherwise we're stuck at a happy cap of 4.

so I think we hav eot do animal husbandry and find a way to get that ivory connected...

[Cornflakes]

Still planning to locate 2nd city on the western sign 1S of spices? I haven't been following every word of the discussion. Barracks is very expensive early game, especially when the only immediate return is essentially the border pop. Are you going to get enough return on investment from the 90 hammers barracks + work boat for +2 food/turn net? The border pop does pick up 3 additional forests, but those take worker turns and are a non-renewable resource that can be harvested in the future as well. I encourage you to consider waiting until a bit later to pop borders and connect that 2nd ring crab.

[Zalson]

That is what I’m agonizing over. Adding 2 food for 60 hammers (we are agg so cheap barracks) pays back in 2 whips, so 20 turns.

But if we work something like mine spices, mined marble, corn, sugar farm we get out a decent amount of hammers.

The issue is I don’t know what we build other than a barracks. No point in building a workboat without borders pop. Don’t want a worker at size 1. Don’t want a settler. Maybe a warrior?

Maybe we do warrior first and then work a worker for a bit while waiting for a granary.

[Cornflakes]

You could build a workboat at the 2nd city with the intent to net the crabs at either the capital or 3rd city in the east. Or another warrior (I have to mentally swap out of the civ-6 mindset where cities defend themselves). Warriors are useful now for fog busting, exploring, escorting settlers. Long term you can park them as cheap MP, or an extra warm body in an emergency situation.

I also question whether quick Barracks is the right play in the capital. There the culture is essentially worthless, so you're spending 30 hammers of early expansion to get a promotion ... but are you going to be building military units? You could instead have 2 warriors to fog bust for barbs and escort settlers, or a workboat to send out scouting.

[Zalson]

The early barracks at the capital is because we don’t complete the warrior for like 20 turns, which would just reduce the hammers invested to 0.

[Zalson]

Capital workboat comes out using the overflow from the city2 settler and a couple turns growing to size 4.

Answering from my phone so sorry for the multi post response.

[Charriu]

We want sailing because a city on a separate landmass gets and intercontinental bonus to trade routes. The city that is working that crabs resource to the south will get us +2 commerce trade routes from inception, as opposed to +1 commerce internal trade routes. However, we need a galley to found it.

That was what I meant. If there are more city spots on the mainland, I think we keep expanding there. But we probably want a galley out around T60 to 70 to get that city founded.

Ah now I understand. To me this spot did not look that appealing right now. I don't expect that there is any more workable land terrain around that tile, so it will mostly work the crab and whale tile. But we should have at least a look at it.

However, i don't know if we want sailing so early. I do think we want archers just because they're a good defensive unit in advance of iron working.

I had us going animal husbandry just because we'll want the ivory for early happiness. Otherwise we're stuck at a happy cap of 4.

so I think we hav eot do animal husbandry and find a way to get that ivory connected...

AH sounds good and we will know more about the terrain there in a few turns.

Still planning to locate 2nd city on the western sign 1S of spices? I haven't been following every word of the discussion. Barracks is very expensive early game, especially when the only immediate return is essentially the border pop. Are you going to get enough return on investment from the 90 hammers barracks + work boat for +2 food/turn net? The border pop does pick up 3 additional forests, but those take worker turns and are a non-renewable resource that can be harvested in the future as well. I encourage you to consider waiting until a bit later to pop borders and connect that 2nd ring crab.

So far I think it's the best spot to settle. On the other side we would only share the crab and would also need a border pop for the other crab. In the north are just not enough food resources. This 2nd city spot at least can share the corn and sugar. But you are right that we have to invest more in the city, so I will look into Zalson's idea of working a warrior first followed by a worker

You could build a workboat at the 2nd city with the intent to net the crabs at either the capital or 3rd city in the east. Or another warrior (I have to mentally swap out of the civ-6 mindset where cities defend themselves). Warriors are useful now for fog busting, exploring, escorting settlers. Long term you can park them as cheap MP, or an extra warm body in an emergency situation.

I've added that to the list and will develop a plan for this, so I can compare the different ideas.

I also question whether quick Barracks is the right play in the capital. There the culture is essentially worthless, so you're spending 30 hammers of early expansion to get a promotion ... but are you going to be building military units? You could instead have 2 warriors to fog bust for barbs and escort settlers, or a workboat to send out scouting.

Just like Zalson already said a warrior would lose hammers over time there. The main reason for this was to grow to size 3. I will do continue the barracks later, when I want to grow again.

[Zalson]

I'm feeling really nervous now that we're going to have slavery as an option for 20 turns and we're not going to use it. We may want to reconsider not using it. For example: it might be worthwhile to whip out that first settler, putting us back to size 2, and regrowing to size 3 while the settler's enroute.

We should consider doing that. One inefficient whip might be worth more.